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On Pfizer CEO Kindler and whether he has what it take for Pfizer to make a comeback.

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Amazon founder and CEO meets with journalists from the newsroom at the Washington Post in September 2013.

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Changes under CEO Blankfein mark a big turn for the 100 year old culture of Goldman Sachs.

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Infrastructure spending under president Duterte of the Philippines has increased from 4% of GDP to about 6-7%. Many new projects are started as part of the $177 billion building program. This includes the Clark City project to house 1.2 million people and government offices to move congestion out of Manila. Duterte's plans include cutting traffic down by one third on the artery along the sea that takes 2 million people into Manila from the outskirts every day.

Duterte has continued infrastructure projects planned by his predecessor, and 69% of Filipinos support this infrastructure building program. Conservative spending under his predecessor gives Mr. Duterte more room for increasing spending. Indonesia at 72nd rank and Philippines at 96th rank have fallen behind in infrastructure development in a World Economic Forum recent survey of 141 countries.  

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The threat of climate change is becoming real in China with drought and heat waves. The impact on agriculture is feared as it may affect the autumn crop. For the first time the awareness of climate change is taking on a new urgency, with state media reporting on it with new emphasis. China having to import grain would put pressure on world supplies of foodgrains. It is therefore imperative that China also join in support of keeping Black Sea ports of Ukraine free and able to supply Egypt and North Africa to reduce pressure on world foodgrain markets.  This could also help shorten the war with a return to work on  important goals of climate change, renewing homes and industry for conversion to renewable energy,  restructuring trade so that there is no extreme dependence, and social security, healthcare needs of the Chinese people.

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The 8000 mile Pacific Light underwater sea cable for internet goes from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. After review by the U.S. Justice Department the conduit connecting to Taiwan and Philippines will be used. leaving the internet link to Hong Kong offline. The U.S. is wary of connection to Hong Kong, and its use as a data hub, after the long public protests in Hong Kong. Perception earlier was of Hong Kong as a separate region from China, with its own distinct identity. This is now changing following the protests.

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Internet content and communications provider Yahoo, is losing ground. Compared to a 4% growth for the Internet overall, Yahoo's increase in unique vistors was 4%, according to comScore in the 4 months of 2010 to April. Total minutes dropped 11%, and page views dropped 13% in same period, compared to double digit increases for the Web. Yahoo CEO, Bartz, lacks a background in journalism and content development. And AOL is pursuing a similiar strategy. Yahoo agreed to acquire Associated Content which aggregates content from bloggers, and it is making trials with local content in Detroit and Cleveland for user engagement. Bartz plans to revamp the email interface. Analysts sense that the repair job will be tough for Bartz as Yahoo's image has suffered.

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George Walden reviews "Opium and Empire" by Richard Grace, which focusses on the origins of Jardine, Matheson & Co., the British firm run by two Scottish traders Jardine and Matheson. This firm was at the centre of the trade in opium carried out on the black market in China using opium brought from India. It paid for the shipping expenses to take tea and silks brought back in the British market. The confiscation of a shipment of opium in Canton, China, by a Chinese Commissioner led to the first of the opium wars. This ended with the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 negotiated by Foreigh Secretary Palmerston giving Britain possession of the island of Hong Kong. It was the long history of such depredations, including the Japanese invasion in the 1930's that led to the nationalism and rise of Communists led by Mao in China by 1945.

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Dr. Delos "Toby" Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, is interviewed by Anna Wilde Matthews of the WSJ.

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Former Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino joins the Board of Directors of Twitter as its first female director. Scardino was the first woman to become CEO of a FTSE 100 company in the UK when she was appointed head of Pearson in 1997. Her reflection on the progress since then is one of disappointment. She told the Telegraph newspaper when she left Pearson that not much had changed in the 16 years since 1997, with few women on the board of directors, chairmen or CEO positions in the corporate world. Yoree Koh points out in this report that only 8.4% of Silicon Valley companies have women directors, according to an annual study put out in Dec. 2012 by the Universiy of California, Davis. About 40% of the tech companies in the S&P Composite 1500 index have no women on their boards, according to an Ernst & Young report.

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Erich Scwartzel's exceptional account of Dreamworks going astray as its CEO went in a hundred different directions- a smaller studio trying to get into multiple platforms and industries, and trying to compete with much larger Disney in China- provides a unique insight into what happens when a CEO, especially one with creative talent, loses his primary focus. Extensive interviews by Schwartzel with insiders shows the creative people at the studio struggling to get Katzenberg's attention as he made many of his frequent trips to China. DreamWorks Animation CEO's effort to get into several related businesses, television, publishing, theme parks, children's toys, and enter the Chinese market in a big way to compete with Disney, has led to a loss of focus in its main business of feature films. The result is large impairment charges and several films from the "Rise of the Guardians" in 2012 to "Penguins of Madagascar" recently, that did not cover rising production costs at the box office. Four of six films since 2012, before the recent film "Home," failed at the box office since 2012. Katzenberg now says he realizes pursuing different directions led to spreading resources too thin, and he intends to make producing 2 or 3 good feature films every year his No. 1 priority. Restructuring underway and some box office flops led to 4th quarter loss of $263 million from $17 million profit the prior year. About 20% of the workforce or 500 workers will be laid off, a Northern California operation will be closed, and the Glendale headquarters sold and leased back to improve cash flow. DreamWorks shares were at $22.68, March 27, 2015, down from $44 Feb 2010, and IPO day close of $38.75. ...

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J.P. Morgan Chase announces $2 billion in trading losses in May 2012. The Chief Investment Office unit made a bet with a trading strategy that CEO Jamie Dimon said had grown very complex. These losses could grow or shrink during the rest of the year.

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Shayndi Raice of the Journal interviews CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and COO Sheryl Sandberg, of Facebook, before the company's IPO.

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The CEO of Little Bird Company, Marshall Kirkpatrick, on why startups should move to Portland, and the Oregon area.